Dream Away
by Kenjiro Minami
Summary: Nyx, the goddess of the night, has cast a spiteful spell over Camp Phoenix, sending the summer residents into dreams and nightmares from which they cannot leave until they come to terms or realize that they are in fact dreaming. This story here is filled with the dreams a few of these campers had experienced, both beautiful and horrifying. Read if you dare.


**Yo yo yo. Any of you following along to my forum, Camp Phoenix, would know that we just recently decided to make our most recent event part challenge, part RP. This is the challenge part of it, where we turn the nightmares or dreams our characters had into stories.**

 **This one here is Aithne Caden's nightmare, a demigod who is a daughter of Apollo.**

 **So, with nothing else to say, I present to you the dream Aithne Caden had.**

 **Also, I must warn you ahead of time of some stuff that I don't want to give away. Um… Viewer discretion advised. X'D**

 **...**

The first thing Aithne felt when the spell was cast over camp was panic. This felt too real, too solid to just be a dream. She felt as though this were reality, and her worst fears were becoming reality. In part, though, she was correct. They _were_ becoming reality, just in a hellish, nightmare reality that she couldn't escape, no matter how hard she tried. A hellish, nightmare reality that she had no idea was a dream, and had no hopes of escaping until she came to the realization that it was in fact all fake. But the way her nightmare was going now, so soon, it seemed it would never happen.

It all started at a time when she was young. Maybe three or four. The first family that had adopted the orphaned girl. _No_ , she reminded herself. _Not adopted. They didn't want me. They just fostered me. Nothing else. They don't love me. Why don't they love me? Why do they hurt me so much_?

Despite being seventeen, her dream thought like her four-year-old self, unable to fully understand the world around her. Or maybe she understood too much. Maybe she knew too much, and that was why the people wanted to hurt her. She did remember calling the police the first time it had happened, the first time they had raised their hand at her. But they didn't get arrested. Instead, once the police left, they hurt her more than they had before she had called the cops.

 _Please, stop_! She wanted to cry out, but her mouth wouldn't move, lips too tight with the pain they were causing her. The man threatened her a lot, too. He threatened her so much, swearing at the young, little redhead that was cowering before him. Foul stances rolled off the man, a stale scent of drugs. The tangy scent of cigarettes mingled with the bitter smell of beer rushed from his mouth with each word he yelled, threatening to suffocate the four-year-old with their toxic fumes. She felt like throwing up. They hurt her eyes and throat and nose, and she wanted nothing more than to escape the poison that was being fed into her small lungs and the torture she was being forced to endure physically.

" _Get your ass back here_!" The man towering over her growled, not uncharacteristically. He always growled at her like that. Like he hated the very fact that the little girl named Aithne even existed. He lumbered after her, his thick leather belt wrapped once around his hand and pulled taught as he raised it, preparing to whip the young girl that he and his wife were fostering. " _You think you get to call the cops without punishment, huh? Well you thought wrong, girly. Get back here_!"

His roar sounded behind her as Aithne darted out of the corner and in between his legs, the belt snapping down on the wall instead of across her back like it had several times before.

" _No_!" the little girl cried, running to the stairs. " _You're just going to hurt me! Please! I don't want you to hurt me! I'll be good, I swear! I promise I'll be good!_ "

" _Good_?" The man let out a sour laugh. " _Good?_ " he repeated before letting out another bitter, rancid laugh. " _Orphaned children like you are never good! You lot think you get whatever you want whenever you want it! You just steal and take what isn't yours. You all lie. Why'd you call the cops, huh? Why?_ "

" _Because you're hurting me!_ " Aithne cried in response, stumbling up the stairs. Her back hurt. It hurt so much. She almost couldn't stand it hurt so much. Her wrists hurt, too. Hurt from when the mean man who was fostering her had grabbed onto her and pulled her down to the basement so he could lock her up. But he hadn't locked her up. She had escaped, and that's why he wanted her to stop running away from him, why he was still hurting her. But he would've hurt her more if she had stayed down there. He would have beat her more with the belt and giving her more cuts and bruises. He would've kicked her before leaving her in the dark, alone and afraid and hurt and crying and hungry and cold. He would've left her there for countless hours, and wouldn't give her any food. He would come back down and hurt her some more if she made a single sound that he could hear, even if it was just her looking for a blanket to use in the boxes he kept down there, trying to escape potential hypothermia. He didn't like her. Not one bit. He wanted her to suffer. Suffer so much. She didn't know if she could suffer anymore.

" _Hurt you_?" Aithne heard the mockery in his tone as he took a step closer to her, expression cruel and uncaring. Frightened, she turned and tried to flee up the stairs, but then he suddenly had her by the ankle and was dragging her back down the stairs, not caring that by doing so he was causing new bruises to sprout between her ribs where each edge of a step hit her. " _I only hurt you because you don't listen_."

" _I do listen_!" Aithne cried out as she bounced off the last step. She tried to turn around, turn so that her back was on the ground and not her stomach, but the man's grip was firm on her ankle, bruising her more than she already was bruised. She let out a strangled cry, but didn't cease her struggles, still trying to escape the evil man.

He didn't pay her words any mind. Instead, he dragged the four-year-old over to the basement door by the ankle, ignoring her screams and kicks as he did. " _Ungrateful ass child_ ," he growled as he flung open the basement door. " _I give you a home, I give you food, and what do you give me in return? A call to the fucking cops. Do you know what they could've found? They could've found the drugs I'm supposed to be delivering tomorrow! Do you know what could've happened to me if I'd been caught? Boss here could've dealt me my final hand and killed me!"_

" _Good!_ " Aithne spat as a final act of courage. " _I wish you were dead! I hate you!_ " Her defiance didn't last long, though, for the evil man turned on her, vicious and feral. His belt raised in his hand, and then-

Suddenly, Aithne woke up, trembling and gasping, shaking hard, cold sweat running down her forehead. Her hands were clutching her abdomen, still feeling the pain that the modified belt whip would have brought her in that hellish nightmare. She looked around at her surroundings, and found that she was in her room. Her room with a Hello Kitty poster on one side, and a wall dedicated to make-up on the other. The wall opposite the one her beds headboard was pushed up against had a bookshelf lined with all sorts of books, ranging from medical studies that most kids her age held no interest for, to fantasy novels like the Harry Potter series. It took her awhile to calm herself down from her fright. _Everything's fine_ , Aithne told herself. _I'm back in my room._ Her fourteen-year-old room. She was no longer four, anymore. She was fourteen. _I'm safe_.

"Is everything okay, Aith?"

The voice made her jump, and the teen rolled over to see a boy sitting in her chair that she had against the wall with the Hello Kitty poster. He had shaggy brown hair, not red like hers, that fell into his face and covered more than half his forehead, threatening to encroach upon his eyes if he didn't get a trim soon. He had odd, amber eyes that made her heart skip a beat whenever they glanced her way. There were freckles under them, too, and his face was soft, untouched by scruff despite the fact that he had just recently turned seventeen, probably the day before or so.

Swallowing thickly, Aithne nodded. "Yeah, I-I'm fine-" She wanted to call him Ben for some reason. Why did she want to call him Ben? She didn't know any Ben's, and she doubted she ever would. Shaking away the thought, Aithne quickly forced a cough. "Yeah, I'm fine, Dustin."

"Are you sure?"

Aithne couldn't help but to smile at her boyfriend's concern as she sat up, her left shoulder popping as she did. "Yes, Dustin. I'm sure."

"Well… okay." He shrugged his lean shoulders and stood up from the chair he was sitting in, stretching his arms out. Aithne couldn't help but to watch his lean stomach muscles stretch when his shirt raised above them. He noticed her staring and smirked at her. "Like the show?" He asked.

Aithne turned red at the question and quickly looked away, making Dustin laugh. They hadn't been dating for long. Maybe a month or two, but Aithne was already dead in love with him. She knew it was probably wrong to feel that way for a guy who was almost two years older than her - Frederick, her adoptive father, had always warned her against dating guys, and especially older guys. Aithne figured it was probably because unlike her foster father, Frederick really loved her, and wanted to look out for her. He and his wife Crystal had loved her enough to want to adopt her when she was twelve, finally giving the teen a home to live in and one that she _wanted_ to live in, too. They spoiled her a lot, and Aithne couldn't have asked for a better couple to call her parents than them.

"Relax, Aithne," Dustin said as he made his way over to her. "I'm not gonna tease you for liking my abs. I work real hard on getting them the way they are. At least _somebody_ appreciates them." He chuckled when she turned even more red, and he gave her a small kiss on the lips.

"I-I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes them," she stuttered. "I-I mean… A-All those girls going to watch your swim meets. I-I'm sure they're there just to see them."

"Nah," Dustin chuckled, moving so that he was over Aithne's legs, making her a little uncomfortable, though she didn't complain. "They just like men in Speedos."

Aithne made a disgusted face as she rested her upper body on her elbows, leaning back on the bed. "Yeah, sure, if they're horny and like to see a guy get an erection in action."

"But don't you?" Dustin asked softly, inching closer to her face. "Don't you like to see that?"

There was something weird about Dustin all of a sudden. Aithne didn't know what had cued her into that fact first. The fact that he was over her, or the fact that his eyes seemed to be slightly fogged, as though there was something he desired but couldn't have. It took her awhile to place a name to his expression. _Lust_.

Aithne was suddenly more uncomfortable than she already was, but still she refused to let it show. "Err, no. I'd be fine with never seeing that again, thank you. But I know how much swim means to you."

"So you only come because of me?" Aithne could feel his desire coming off of him in heavy waves as he leaned down a little and gave her neck a small, feathery kiss. Again, the name _Ben_ flashed through her mind, but once more, Aithne couldn't understand why that name popped into her head, and why it so chose to do so when Dustin had kissed her neck. So, just like before, she ignored it.

"Erm, yeah, I guess you could say that…" She said, trailing off as Dustin began trailing kisses further down her neck, getting uncomfortably close to the collar of her button up women's plaid shirt. He didn't seem to notice how uncomfortable the teen was getting in response to his actions, so he continued.

"That's very nice of you, Aith," he mumbled against her skin. His hands were suddenly at the top button of her shirt, fumbling to undo it. He was done faster before Aithne could tell him to stop, and was already onto the second, third button by the time she was able to get any words out.

"Dustin," she croaked. "Dustin, stop. I don't want to do this right now," she told him. "Dustin, please. Stop."

"Don't worry, Aithne," Dustin murmured, taking up his light kisses where he had left off, trailing them down to her where her bra was over her right breast. "Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to undo your bra, now, okay?"

Aithne quickly shook her head. "N-no. Dustin, I-I don't want to do this. Please, Dustin. I don't want to do this. If you continue to do this, I-I can charge you with attempted rape. I-I can, a-and I will."

He either didn't seem to care about her threat, or thought it was a joke. Aithne assumed the latter, because Dustin was suddenly smiling at her. "Is that one of your fantasies, Aith?" he asked her, snaking a hand underneath the teen and slowly undoing her bra single-handedly. "To be raped? That's an odd fantasy, Aith."

She squirmed at the touch of his hand on her bare back, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut. "N-no! Dustin, I mean it! St-stop! I-I don't want to do this! Stop!"

"Sh sh sh sh shhhh," he hissed, attempting to sound soothing. But the look in his eyes, the burning lust, just frightened Aithne more as her bra was suddenly undone. She let out a small whimper. "Aith, I get it's one of your fantasies, but it isn't any of mine, okay? I just want to feel them, Aithne. I've never felt them before. Well," he added with a lopsided grin that didn't match up with the look in his eyes. "That's not entirely true, for the obvious reasons that as a baby I had felt my mother's breasts, but that's different. That was to feed, so that I could grow strong and become a man. This is different." He moved, sitting up a little so he could take off his shirt. "This is love," he whispered, getting down and hovering over Aithne once more, whispering those three words in her ear. "It's all I want to do right now, Aith. I just want to make love with you for hours and hours. Don't you want to do that, too? Don't you want to feel what love _really_ feels like?"

Aithne shook her head. "N-no. Dustin, th-that's just your hormones speaking. Dustin, you don't really want to have sex. You don't. You're still young, Dustin. _I'm_ still young. Please… I don't want to do this."

Anger flashed across his face for a brief moment before the older teen smiled sweetly. "Oh, Aithne. You know how much I hate it when you lie to me."

"I'm not lying!"

"Yes, you are," Dustin suddenly growled uncharacteristically. "You're lying. You _want_ to make love with me. You _want_ to feel love like I do." He suddenly had hold of her wrist, his grasp tight enough to bruise her. She let out a single cry of pain before quickly shutting up, visions of her nightmare and the evil man who would hurt her flashing before her eyes. _Don't cry out_ , she told herself. _It'll only make things worse_. _Don't make a single sound, Aithne_.

Despite herself, the demigod whimpered. "Dustin, stop. _Please_."

"Aithne, you want this! I know you want this! Now just shut up! Shut up, you hear! Shut up!" Suddenly lips were pressed firmly against hers silencing the teens complaints. Her green eyes went wide, but she couldn't pull away as Dustin began to strip her down, still kissing the fourteen-year-old and terrified girl.

 _This isn't how it happened_ , a small voice said in the back of her mind. She tried to latch onto that voice, that single thought, struggling all the while against Dustin. _This isn't how it had actually happened. You had gotten rid of him. Aithne, you're dreaming._ The voice sounded frantic, urgent. _Aithne, you need to wake up. This isn't what had happened. He didn't rape you, Aithne. The furthest he got was undoing your shirt. That was when dad came in, hearing your shouts. He stopped Dustin. This isn't what happened. You need to wake up_.

 _I need to wake up_. Aithne squeezed her green eyes shut, hoping desperately that the voice wasn't lying to her as she continued to struggle against Dustin's attempts, and then, suddenly-

She woke up.


End file.
